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Basma Al-Shatti, Head of department of community service responsibilities, Jordan Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Fund (JREEEF)
Climate change recently one of the most intensive pressing issues and presents the biggest threat to the sustainable future for our planet. Lucky us that the main causes of climate change are well understood and challenging us to make hard and irreversible action, depending on fossil fuels and deforestation, which leads to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thankfully, there are many opportunities to replace the use of fossil fuels using cleaner, renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind and water. Despite reducing carbon emissions helping to slow the rate of global warming. However, only 20% of the total global energy consumption comes from renewable energy, which means the other 80% comes from fossil fuels-coal, oil and natural gas.
Renewable energy bring important role by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and moving the world towards a cleaner, more sustainable and secure energy future. Solar energy is a free and inexhaustible resource, beside the slowing down cost and rising technological efficiencies. And it is important for all countries to continue to invest in green energies to have a long-lasting impact on our planet’s future and climate change.
The 3,000 hours of sunshine availability per year in Middle East, with the significant reduction in the price of electricity production from solar power over recent years, and governments commitment to a sustainable future, efforts in the region are being redirected to the development of utility-scale solar power plants, which lead to increase the accumulative installed solar power in the region from 4,850 MW in 2017, to exceed 20,800 MW by 2022.
Promoting Renewable energy important for its for environment and economic benefits, the renewable resources almost inexhaustible, replenish themselves naturally can supply energy for the long term, reduce dependence on fossil fuels which cause pollution the major cause of global warming with tangible impact on humankind and other organisms on earth, also the fossil fuel price pushed up the world inflation rate and the ever uncertain global economy weakens trade and industry, beside jobs created and lower the cost of energy.
Matching and integrating different renewable technologies can reduce the overall power generation costs, like integration between solar and wind energy, where solar energy generation with the highest power supply curve at noon can match the peaking energy, and wind energy has the highest power supply curve in the winter months. So for unavailable wind time periods we can generate electricity by solar energy. Also, renewable energy can bring a practical solution to the technically feasible but economically expensive demand management options such reducing the investment in conventional generation, transmission and distribution system reinforcement and expansion.
Therefore, a change in political attitude and promoting renewable energy is a matter of life for us and our plants. The landmark global climate change agreement was adopted in Paris 2015. The legally binding treaty now has 197 signatories, and its central aim is to keep global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, it also aims to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Governments worldwide have become committed to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century. This will require enormous scientific innovation and technological change, alongside with behavioral change and a move to low carbon energy like wind and solar power. This bring big role for renewable energy in our future. So solar power can save billions in energy costs and reduce CO2 emissions, where each kilowatt of solar power installed will prevent about 3000 pounds of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere.
The Middle East is an area that is well known for having huge solar potentials in its vast, hot deserts with more than 300 Sundays/year. All of the countries in the region receive an average daily solar radiation of between 4 and 7.1 kW h/m2 in some cases reach 8 kW h/m2, with maximum value of sunlight duration up to 10.9 hours a day, which representing a huge potential for solar energy generation beside the majority of desert areas in Middle East are suitable for solar power installations, makes governments invest hugely in solar power, one of the earliest projects is the Ma’an Solar Park in Jordan, connected to the national grid in May 2014 in the south of the country producing 160 GWh of electricity per year, providing power for about 140,000 households, and The United Arab Emirates has the biggest solar power capacity in the entire Middle East and Dubai’s Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is on its way to becoming the largest single-site solar park in the world, with a planned capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030.
We can’t ignore the fact that how the proximity of these places to power networks and cities; where the avoided expensive cost to connect the more remote desert area to the power grid and would need to be redirected to any large-scale solar power project.
At the moment, most of the solar power capacity installed and operational in the Middle East comes from small-scale photovoltaic installations. Though solar energy is only just beginning to be thought of as a reliable and practical alternative to non-renewable sources of power in Middle East, There is numerous solar power projects in pipeline and in progress and many of these with big generating capacities. Besides research in the region about improving solar energy efficiency is also expanding, so the use of solar panels as a power source becomes a more viable possibility for countries looking to diversify their energy sources. So, solar energy future in the Middle East looks promising.
Huge investment poured in solar energy, 70 GW total solar projects auctioned compared to 25 GW for all other technologies in 2020 worldwide, give us a hint how it’s important for the future of coming energy landscape, and Middle East with all potentials and willing have looking to become a major hub for producing solar energy with an aim of exporting solar energy to other parts of the world in demand. By investing in the region with big projects like the Noor Abu Dhabi project, which set a new world record for the lowest cost of electricity for the solar PV power plant at the time, as well investing aboard like the Kamuthi Solar Power Project in India, currently one of the largest solar plants in the world with capacity of 648 MW produces enough electricity for 750,000 people. The Middle East contributed 44% of the total global investment in solar energy in 2017, making it a very significant player in solar energy production. Such successful solar projects demonstrate the capability of Middle East to act as a global leader in solar energy and thus show the great potential of Middle East in contributing to global renewable energy targets.
In addition, the Middle East has the opportunity to meet and exceed global 2030 renewable energy targets. forecast show that the total installed capacity of renewable energy will exceed 260GW, where 20GW of which will be generated from solar power. This means Middle East will reduce carbon emissions by 179.4 million metric tons annually, nearly equivalent of removing 39 million cars out of the roads each year and save 11 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the assets. This not only helps to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and gas, but it also hugely contributes to reducing global carbon emissions.
It’s highly important to invest in required productive energy storage methods to be developed and substantial changes to the traditional utility infrastructure are needed in order to integrate the future expansion of solar power. So, there could be a prolific renewable energy transition make countries may looking to regional partnerships and alliances for sharing of goods, services, knowledge and technology emerge as part of achieving sustainable economic development through the use of solar power, which give Middle East a big role and contribution to further technological development globally in solar industry.
The Middle East has traditionally relied on non-renewable fossil fuels, to meet increasing demands for power combined with economic growth. And it’s become noticeable the accelerating reduction in the consumption of oil, gas, and coal in the region which can be related to the increase in the capacity of solar power. This trend brings a number of favorable outcomes for the environment, like reducing the damage to the landscape caused by coal mining activities and reducing air pollution, which is a very significant advantage, by comparing how fossil fuels contribute to greenhouse gasses dramatically, and in result the climate change. Beside the consumption of oil, gas, and coal increase Sulphur Dioxide gas in the air lead to more air pollution associated with respiratory diseases.
The Middle East, which contributes to about 8% of the global emissions from oil – the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses from oil in the world – so by transition to more solar power causes huge reduction of greenhouse gasses which will bring new value to the region. Thus, more extensive investment in solar power generation, leads to a significant reduction in these emissions, in the long term the subsequent changes in the climate could help to reduce the loss of biodiversity in fragile habitats in the region like coral reefs and mangrove forests. Based on The World Health Organization predicts that the average person in the Eastern Mediterranean Region will live for 2.4 months longer just from environmental improvements created by clean energy transition. As the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and pollution will lead to a decline in chronic disease and lower healthcare costs
As the World Wide Fund for Nature describe it as “some of the most important in the world”, and one of the knock-on effects from it is a boost in local and global economies through an increase in tourism, Resulting making the fragile biomes of Middle East more attractive destination for holidays, These new interests are important to supporting economies in the regions with promotion for sustainable uses of the land.
Besides producing clean energy, like solar energy can support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of promoting sustained inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all by creating employment opportunities. This global goal also helps the Middle East to achieve its own national goals of raising employment rates and increasing energy sustainability. IRENA (the International Renewable Energy Agency) claims that Middle Eastern countries can increase local and countrywide electricity access, decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, help reduce global price flows due to fuel expenditures for fossil imports, and allow the countries to have electricity and water desalination price security and diversity. This can provide large-scale work chances on both the tech side and also in manufacturing and construction, and hence may help make a substantial industrial foundation as part of developing solar energy into a Middle East area market.
Despite all benefits and potentials for solar energy in Middle East, but still not working enough in this area and huge gap between countries raised, where most current renewable energy projects mainly promoted and adopted by governments and public entities, where The National Climate Change Plans made clear the need for a comprehensive energy use plan that will lead renewable energy implementation. But huge efforts are still in needed to accelerate the transition. In one hand, the intermittent and variable nature of solar energy poses challenges to grid stability and reliability as well as existing electricity systems in Middle East which need development and investment in the infrastructure. In other, policies strategies and incentives needed to be brought upfront soon.
The World Bank recently promoted a number of general areas for development that help in adopting solar energy. Firstly, the World Bank suggests for countries to looking to reduce uses of resources other than oil, Based on a suggestion that ‘those without domestic oil production will import oil and often subsidize its use, leading to inefficient energy and carbon intensive electricity production and consumption’. Secondly, gaining investor confidence in the use of renewable energy sources is critical, so it is important for clear policies and regulations to be adopted. In addition, the World Bank suggests that greater emphasis should be placed on ‘creating an enabling environment for solar power development’ such as policies that reduce risk and attract investment. Finally, the World Bank recommends that ‘solar resource mapping’ should be conducted in the region in order to inform policy and possible solar investment. This is certainly an area for development and one that could yield numerous opportunities for geographers and geospatial scientists in the future. |
